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DiaEuro 2015: "Diabetes doesn’t have to stop you from doing sports and going after your dreams"

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Published on Monday, 10 August 2015 10:04

The 4th edition of DiaEuro, the European futsal championship for people with diabetes, was held between 19 and 26 July in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, the 2015 European Youth Capital. This year’s event was organized by the Romanian Federation of Diabetes Associations (FADR), the Romanian Federation of Diabetes, Nutrition and Metabolic Diseases (FRDNBM) and the Association for People with Diabetes in Cluj-Napoca (ABD Cluj). 16 teams and roughly 250 people with diabetes from all over Europe came together to demonstrate that people with diabetes can do sports, have amazing performances and fulfill all their dreams, despite the fact that they have a medical condition.

The winner of this year’s tournament was Romania, with Hungary and Croatia coming in 2nd and 3rd place respectively. Cristina Maria Petrut, one of the organizers of the event, says: “We are very proud of the Romanian team that won for the second time, and of course also very proud of all the other countries that participated and did their best to show that diabetes doesn’t have to stop you from doing sports and going after your dreams.”

The DiaEuro Championship started as an initiative of the Ukrainian Diabetes Federation in 2012. In the first tournament, 8 countries participated and the winner of that year’s championship, Croatia, organized the event the year after, a tradition that has continued. For next year, however, the ambition of the DiaEuro committee and the participating countries is to hold the event in France during the UEFA championship.

Cristina Maria Petrut was impressed by the DiaEuro players, who all had type 1 or type 2 diabetes: “I am very amazed by the power and strength of all the players. They are all amazing people that took this championship very seriously. They trained a lot, improved their diabetes management and formed a wonderful community of people with diabetes, united by the same goals and purposes and based on friendship, support and hard work.”

For more information about the championship, visit the DiaEuro website or send an email to Cristina Maria Petrut at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.